Bhopal: Three of the six men arrested for attacking two Army officers and their two women friends in Madhya Pradesh’s Indore on 11 September have a history of crimes, with several cases registered against them, according to Madhya Pradesh Police.
Charged with many serious crimes but roaming free while awaiting trial, Anil Baror (27) devised the plan to rob the Army officers and the two women accompanying them with the help of his five friends, said the police. The robbery attempt, however, turned awry, and the arrested also stand accused of the alleged gangrape of one of the women.
Apart from Baror, two of the other arrested accused, Ritesh Bhabhar (25) and Sachin Makwana (25), are habitual offenders, with cases registered against them in different police stations in the state, the police said.
While Bhabar and Baror have allegedly confessed to the rape, Makwana, along with Rohit Girwal (23), Sandeep Wariya (23), and Pawan Bansuniya (23), have also been arrested for the 11 September robbery-gangrape.
According to the police, Baror and Bhabar have been involved in similar kinds of robberies in the area. Baror was allegedly “on the prowl” when he spotted the two Army officers and their two women friends and decided to target them.
Police records show Baror has a case of robbery against him from 2016 and a case of an assault on a public servant from 2019, three different cases—including one of rioting—from 2021, and two separate cases of attempted murder from 2021.
Moreover, earlier this year, the police booked Baror under the new Bharatiya Nyaya Sanhita Act for causing mischief and damage of over Rs 1 lakh.
Bhabhar has a murder case against him from 2019, an attempted murder case from 2021, a rioting case from 2022, and a forgery case from 2020.
On the other hand, a case of voluntarily causing hurt and using obscene language was registered against Makwana at Indore’s Manpur police station this year.
What happened on 11 September
On the intervening night of 10 and 11 September, two Army officers, currently undergoing training for the Young Officers course at the Infantry training school in Indore’s Mhow, sneaked out for a night outing.
They met up with their two women friends and drove to the Jam gate, a scenic picnic spot some 28 km from Mhow. The outing, however, took a tragic turn when the six accused attacked them.
The four were seated in their car—parked roughly 200 metres into a secluded interior road in the jungles around the Jam gate—when Baror allegedly spotted them and called his five friends to the spot to “loot” them so they could “party” with the cash, the police said.
“They (victims) were sitting and chatting. It was around 2.30 am when Baror, a habitual offender who lived in a nearby village, spotted their car. He then called five friends,” Indore district’s Additional Superintendent of Police Rupesh Kumar Dwivedi said.
The attackers, who came from nearby villages, took the Army officers and their friends by surprise. When the victims tried to resist, Baror allegedly pulled out a pistol. Holding the victims at gunpoint, the accused demanded Rs 10 lakh in cash, the police said.
However, soon realising the four were not carrying much money, the attackers sent one of the Army officers and his woman friend to get the cash. When the duo did not return within the stipulated time, Baror and Bhabar allegedly raped the woman accompanying the second Army officer. The woman, the police said, was from outside MP and had come down to meet the Army officers.
According to the police, one of the two women proposed to fetch the cash with one of the Army officers since he was new to the area, and the accused allowed her to go but held the other woman back.
The accused held the Army officer and his woman friend hostage and threatened them of dire consequences if the two did not return with the money in time. After one hour, Baror called the officer they had sent away to get the money.
“The Army officer assured him that they were getting back with the money, but another hour passed, and they did not return. Then, the six accused dragged the Army officer with them and his woman friend to a tiny hillock roughly 100 m away and took the woman in a separate corner and raped her as an act of revenge,” a police officer told ThePrint, requesting anonymity.
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How the accused were nabbed
The Army officer and his friend who got away drove to Mhow and began looking for the Bagdonda police station. They could not find it for roughly 40 minutes.
“Instead of directly informing their superiors or commanding officers, the Army officer first tried to locate the police station, but the area had poor reception, and even when they reached an area with a network, they could not find the police station as it had been relocated from its old building into a new building nearly a month ago,” a police officer said, speaking to ThePrint.
After an hour was gone in the search for the police station, the Army officer turned to his command officer. A while later, Additional Superintendent of Police Rupesh Kumar Dwivedi received a call about the incident at roughly 4.30 am.
“Soon after I received the call, I informed Lokendra Singh, the inspector in charge of Badgonda. Inspector Singh was on patrol duty and roughly 23 km away from the spot and rushed to the location and reached within 20-25 minutes of receiving the information,” said Dwivedi.
With police vehicles approaching, the six accused escaped from the spot. The police found the second Army officer and his friend trying to get down from the hillock. They looked beaten up, and the police rushed them to the hospital for medical treatment.
Ten teams under five inspectors started tracking the accused. A challenge for the police was the area—it lacked cell phone towers, CCTV cameras and witnesses at that hour of the day when the incident unfolded. Hence, the police relied on local villagers and cattle grazers for information, with police personnel in plainclothes gathering information.
The police received a breakthrough on 11 September morning, when a passer-by from a nearby village informed the team of having spotted Baror on his motorcycle, going to his village. The police picked up Baror and started questioning him over his whereabouts the previous night and where he was going so early in the day.
“He began contradicting his statement and then accepted having attacked the four near Jam gate, saying ‘sahab galti ho gayi (sir, I made a mistake)’. He also gave the names of the five others who had been with him,” said a police officer investigating the case.
Along with Baror, the police caught Pawan Bansuniya on 11 September. A day later, they arrested Ritesh Bhabhar.
The chase for the absconding trio, Rohit Girwal, Sandeep Wariya and Sachin Makwana, continued over Thursday night, with police combing the jungles and the three constantly changing their location before the police finally arrested them Friday.
All six remain booked under Bharatiya Nyaya Sanhita sections 70 (gangrape), 310-2 (dacoity), 308-2 (extortion) and 115-2 (voluntarily causing hurt), along with sections of the Arms Act.
The woman allegedly gangraped is yet to record her statement, but the police have collected samples of the two rape accused, Baror and Bhabar, and sent the samples for DNA testing. Meanwhile, the woman is receiving police counselling.
Speaking to ThePrint, Indore Rural Superintendent of Police Hitika Vasal said, “The woman is young and traumatised, and we do not want to force her, but we are confident that she will soon record her statement.”
(Edited by Madhurita Goswami)